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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The Ants Go Marching…

Two things have been constant since the end of June. The first is that my sons have had a baseball game almost every single night since June 18th. The second is that we have been under siege this summer by little black ants.

How do these two things go together and how do they relate to a gluten-free diet? Those are both excellent questions and there is an explanation!

Because I have been traveling all over Westchester County to watch baseball, I have been grocery shopping all over Westchester County. I am popping into stores for essentials that are not my normal shopping places. My youngest had a game at a field in Ardsley, so I made a pit stop at DeCicco’s Food Market on the way home to pick up food for the weekend. They also have an impressive section of gluten-free items so I am always happy to have a game in Ardsley.

I picked up a package of regular store baked cupcakes and a frozen package of The Grainless Baker’s gluten-free cupcakes for dessert treats that evening.

When I got home, we ate a light supper and I left three cupcakes defrosting on the counter for later. I’m not sure they were fully defrosted before my celiac wolfed down two. I wanted to enjoy my cupcake at room temperature so I left it there.

Here is where the ants come in…I walked back into the kitchen about an hour later and there was my cupcake in a full swarm of little black ants. They had never been up on the counter like that, ever. The dog food bowl, yes. The garbage container, yes. But, never, ever, ever swarming all over something left on the counter.

I don’t know if I was more grossed out or dismayed. I really was looking forward to that cupcake with its pretty white frosting and sprinkles. The ants had shimmied their way into the wrapper, they were doing the backstroke in the frosting and they seemed to be calling to all the ants in the neighborhood to come join in the gluten-free feast.

It’s not like I could pick off an ant and pretend it didn’t really eat much, there was no way I could eat this cupcake without chewing on some ants. I threw it out and put a glop of poison ant gel down for a more deadly snack for these stupid pests.

The next day I was at a meeting in the office in Hastings-on-Hudson and I stopped in at By The Way Bakery and bought two cupcakes, a lemon cupcake and a carrot cake cupcake. The owner put them in a pretty box and I took them out to my car, opened up the box and ate them right there. I don’t know if ants have a preference for gluten-free food, but I wasn’t taking any more chances on losing my gluten-free cupcakes to little black ants!